[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the Whole Hog Sports podcast. And now here's your host, Matt Jones.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Lot going on here in Fayetteville today, the rain notwithstanding, baseball game last night, basketball game tonight against Texas. But we're going to start the show talking about this Tyson agreement with the University of Arkansas, with the Razorbacks, the athletics department that's going to make basically Tyson the official, you name it, I guess, of the Razorbacks. They're gonna have patches on their jersey, they're gonna have logos on the field. Tyson, who's already got its name all over the backdrops for these media interviews, that's gonna continue. There's other things that are part of this agreement. Christina Long is here in studio with me. She reported on this today.
I guess, kind of nuts and bolts of this. Number one, we don't know the cost that Tyson is paying for this.
We do know that the, you know, the rumors that have been out there however many years, however many millions of dollars. That is not correct. Hunter Yurichak told you this yesterday, that I think you asked him point blank, is it $300 million for 10 years? I think that's a rumor that's been out there. And he said no. John Tyson was quoted in CBS Sports this morning. Brandon Marcelo, a friend of ours, interviewed John Tyson, and John Tyson said he wouldn't give the financial details either, but he said it's not like it's $100 million or anything like that. Yeah, I could probably give you an educated guess on what I think that this might be just kind of based on what I know about what some of these advertising assets have been worth in the past.
But really, the big wild card here is the jersey patch, because there has not been a college team that has had jersey patches before next season.
NBA teams have had it, NFL teams have had it for their practice jerseys. NHL teams have had it, Major League Baseball's had it. But college is not pro sports. And so I don't know that you can really apply what's happening in pro sports to college. I think it's kind of a weird time because the market basically is whatever I say it is whenever I'm going out and I'm trying to shop this. So, yeah, I think that if you're putting, you know, educated guesses out there, like I said a second ago, you know, you might be close to being right or you may be way off, because again, we just don't know what the market is for these jersey patches.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Exactly. It really is just kind of whatever you say it is because you know, you can look at, say, what the NFL or the NBA, what, what those deals are worth, and then kind of adjust it for the size of your, your market.
But it is going to vary widely across college sports because of different market sizes. I mean, I said something on our message board about, you know, a jersey patch for. On a Notre Dame jersey is going to command a higher price tag than an Arkansas JJ.
But any SEC team is going to command a pretty. It's the same with stadium naming rights.
Any SEC team, any Big Ten teams in these power leagues especially, are going to command a higher value because of the tv, just the number of eyeballs you're going to have on it. And so even if you're not, you know, one of the top brands in the sec, you still, your floor is higher if you're in Arkansas versus some of these other schools. So the other thing about it that I think makes it a particularly interesting and lucrative deal is you can sell two spots on your jerseys. You can sell two sponsorship spots. But Hunter Check told me that this makes Tyson the exclusive jersey patch partner. They are not going to have another one.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Which makes me wonder, did they buy out their competition? Like, like, did they see, you know, like, let's say you have the Tyson logo on your left side. Do they see somebody having a logo on the right side as competition to the, the value that they've bought? And so do they buy out that competition? I would think that they probably did or at least, you know, got some sort of nice, you know, sweetheart deal.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: I think you would have to. You would have to kind of upcharge for that. It wouldn't just be, yeah, we're going to do this just to be nice. It would, it would increase the value of that deal.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: I was looking at these pictures they put out and, you know, like on some jerseys now, there are four logos on the front of the jersey because you have the Tyson patch. You got the Razorback logo that's on there. You've got the SEC logo. And then, of course, all of the apparel is through Nike.
I guess you could have had a fifth one on there had Tyson not been, you know, the quote, unquote, exclusive patch provider. I don't think that's the official term, but that's one I've just made up here. And, you know, the NCAA hasn't said whether or not it will have logos on the jerseys in the NCAA tournament. But I suspect that, you know, they're like everybody else. They want as much money as they can get, that they're going to do that, too.
They left that avenue open as part of this new rule change that was put into place about two months ago with the jersey patches. And I've also been wondering, like, does Tyson, does it conflict with any of the NCAAs, quote unquote, corporate champions? Because they said in the initial ruling that that would be basically any of these logos that have been sold for the regular season.
Those will be evaluated based on, you know, the NCAA's contracts with what are their big ones? Coca Cola, Capital One, I think AT and T's one. So, like, let's say you're a school and you sell a sponsorship to Verizon or you sell a sponsorship to Pepsi. Is that in direct competition with what the NCAA has sold? These are all little weird wrinkles that now, you know, I mean, it's, it's uncharted water for college sports.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it's totally different. Arkansas is only the, the fifth school to, to have a dirty patch. I thought it was four. But Louisiana Monroe has one. They're only the fifth school to announce a partner for this for uniforms in games. Omaha has one specifically for their men's ice hockey team.
LSU has one for all sports. Theirs is kind of similar with an Australian energy company that I guess has like a lot of Louisiana ties somehow.
And then UNLV was the first to announce. They announced theirs in December before the rule had actually even passed. And theirs is the only. Where details have been reported. It's $11 million over five years, I believe, so about 2.2 per year.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: But again, that's just for a jersey patch.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Just for a jersey patch. And it's only for football, both basketballs and baseball. So that's, it's, it gives you kind of an idea. But it's also, it's unlv, it's only for sports. And it's just the patch. It doesn't include all these other things that Tyson is including. But it's interesting to kind of look at that and go, okay, so it's a lot more than that.
And we don't know LSU's either. But LSU is the only other kind of comparable one where it's, it's all sports and it's a big brand.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: And we know, I mean, we, we got a.
How much Tyson and Walmart collectively are paying to have their logos on the field at Razorback Stadium?
Just that's through some stuff that the board of trustees has done in terms of comparing Razorback Stadium finances to War Memorial Stadium.
That's. Football is obviously the engine that drives all of this. And I would think that the rate for football is going to be higher than any other sport. Although I will say that with basketball, just the volume of games and you've got two different teams that play on the same floor, I could see where basketball could maybe drive a comparable figure for the logo on the, on the playing surface, you know, and then after that it's, it's kind of like the inverted pyramid. It's, you know, baseball and then softball, basically, you know, who are getting their, you know, who's getting eyes on their, their, their sport the most. But I would think that the jersey patches are way more lucrative than the field sponsorships because, you know, like, if you, if you're watching a football game in Fayetteville right now, you can see the Tyson logo anytime. You're, you'll say past like the 40 yard line on this side of the field.
Well, if you've got the patch on your jersey, you see it pretty much at all times, or at least at any time that they're showing somebody from that team. So I would think that that was a much more lucrative deal than even the field sponsorship is. And so I think that if you take that into consideration with some of the market analysis in terms of how much these patches are supposed to potentially be worth, and it's a wide variance. It's like I've seen $500,000, I've seen $12 million. It is, again, kind of make up your number and see if that's what somebody will, somebody will pay you. But I think, I feel, I mean, and this is kind of a dull statement, but you feel comfortable saying that this is something in the seven figures that Tyson's paid for per year.
I could see where maybe, maybe it would approach eight figures. I don't know that it would. And you're talking about a five year deal. So it's a lot more money put, maybe put it this way, it's a lot more money now than what they had this last year. And I say now this is going to go into effect in the next school year, right?
[00:08:57] Speaker A: Yeah. And they're, they're really bullish on this. They keep wanting to tout it as, you know, they believe it is the, the most lucrative sponsorship deal in college athletics right now. They don't think anybody's got a bigger deal with anybody right now. So we'll see if that, you know, if other schools come out and say that as more and more of these, you know, so pretty much every school right now is working on selling a jersey patch, some kind of a sponsorship package for that now that it's allowed. But we'll see if that. If others. If any other school, you know, if Georgia signs something and says this is the biggest, you know, we'll. And we'll never know. Because we'll never know.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I mean, you could have 25 of the biggest, you know, contracts that have ever been.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Written just in this off season. I will say, you know, the. The Razorbacks and EuroCheck as the ad, they do get a rap, you know, Right. Wrong, whatever.
For not being very forward thinking sometimes. And, you know, I don't know how forward thinking this is, you know, early
[00:09:53] Speaker A: to get it done.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: But that's what I was going to say is it's, you know, they're one of the first. And I feel like maybe the narrative with the program a lot of times is that it is trailing others who are more entrepreneurial than the Razorbacks.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, Hunter Yurtech told me they started this in the fall when it became pretty clear it was added as an agenda item at the NCAA convention. And, you know, he had talked about this many times before, and he and others that, you know, they were pretty confident that jersey patches were coming, that it was going to get approved fairly soon. So it was on everybody's minds. He said when it kind of got added to that agenda, that was kind of a sign that it was headed for, you know, imminent approval. And he said in the fall, they started working on this. You know, their Learfield people were already kind of working with different potential sponsors about the stadium naming rights. So he said it was pretty easy for them to also approach people about this kind of package. He said Tyson was top of their list, so that was first they approached. You know, that's probably true, but, you know, they can also just say that, and, you know, this is something that is. Is significant for them. And he said he told Brandon Marcelo that a stadium naming rights deal is in the, you know, very near.
So they. They. It seems like Learfield has. Has made moves there, too. But, yeah, I mean, this is definitely something that they've gotten out ahead of and that they've gotten done. You know, everybody is trying to do this right now, but they're one of the first five to actually make it happen and announce it and have it ready.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: I wonder. And this is just me speculating. This is not me having any type of inside knowledge about this, but whether or not Tyson might end up as the stadium sponsor, too. They're just not to the finish line. With that separate agreement.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: I don't think they would have just waited to put it all together. I mean, that's what I would have done if I were.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Yeah. When we had your check at the Hogs Illustrated Sports Club back in September, I asked him, what's the timeline on getting a name on the football stadium? And this was like early September. This was the week of the Arkansas State game.
And he said that he thought 2026 would be ambitious, that it would probably be 2027 before you saw a stadium naming rights for football.
Just because Those agreements take 12 to 15 months on a lot of or in a lot of occasions to, you know, cross all the T's, dot the eyes and get finished. Again, I don't know if it would be Tyson. Maybe it's somebody else that they go and, you know, maybe they tried to. Again, I'm speculating. Maybe they tried to package all this together with a stadium naming rights for Tyson and that was maybe too much to stomach.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: I'm sure they tried. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think if they're gonna announce something, if he. If they're announcing something in, you know, the next couple of months, I don't think it's Tyson. But if it's, you know, next year, then yeah, maybe it's an expanded thing with Tyson. Like, if it's not going to be till on there till 2027, then maybe. But I would think if it were coming in the next little bit, they would have waited to put all this out there until they had all of that.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: How do you feel about everything being sponsored?
[00:12:44] Speaker A: I'm. I mean, I don't really care. Like, there's a lot of things I think about everything being about money now that bother me more than that.
I don't think it's like violating.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Well, that may be the uniform. No, no, no.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: I don't like.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: No, I don't care about that. I'm just talking about, just in general of it. It feels like everything is for sale. Everything is for sale.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Our baseball parking passes are sponsored by Oaklawn. I wonder if that is. I think it's Oakland. I'm like, I wonder how much that cost to get your logo on the parking passes.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I had not noticed that one.
You know, it's like in basketball right now, I think about, you know, they're playing Texas at Budwalton tonight and it's going to be the last game that they play there this year.
You got the radio people sitting up in the middle of the stands now, because there were, you know, some seats right here and some seats right here on the end of the scorers table that we said, you know what, maybe we could put some oversized lounge chairs out here and sell them for $175,000 a pop.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: And I would not want to sit in those. I don't want coach whoever's butt in my face the entire game. That's literally what happens. If you look, they're just leaned over.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: You pay for that, right.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Crazy.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: That privilege, you know, or hey, here's like something, here's something. And I don't know that a lot of people notice or a lot of. I'm sure most people don't know this baseline seating where photographers sit for basketball games. And it's almost like, it's almost non existent now. So Budwalt arena, what you have is, you know, used to, and I should have checked on the number but used to you could probably have anywhere close to 20 photographers at a game.
You know, people from various news outlets, wire services, whatever. And you know, you might have about 10 on this side of the floor and about 10 on this side of the floor.
And what's happened now is that it's been all of that, all of that space has been two things have happened or most of that space you either have now baseline courtside seats on each side or that is one, I guess it'd be, and not. Or so that's one. And then you also have on each baseline now these advertising boards with rotating advertisements that are, you know, throughout the game. And so what's happened at Bud Walton is that now you've got five photographers in a lot of instances kind of sitting behind the guy who's on the, the chair with the wheels, who's shooting for the tv. And you know, they're, I mean they are, they are cramped in there. Seems to, I mean they can't, they can't barely move. You got five on one side and you got five on the other. And we're fortunate that we've got a, you know, we're able to have our own photographer pass. But you know, like, like visiting newspapers. Lexington Herald Leader, they didn't get a photo pass at Bud Walton arena this year. They didn't get a photo pass on the floor at Florida this year, although they did, you know, set up some sort of arrangement where they could have a photographer, you know, sit up higher up in the arena.
You know, you look at photographers who, you know, they shoot at football games and they're all Wearing these. What they call them, the mocks or the smart is a smart smock that they wear. And they're, you know, they're advertised on, like, they're, you know, branded cattle or something out there, and they're just trying to do their job, you know, so those are little things that just kind of bother me.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Stuff like that bothers me a lot more than, like, a Jersey patch, because we just see it in, like, every other sport. It just doesn't.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: It's almost like there's. There's a. There's. There's a thought that, you know, it's like space is inventory. Every bit of space is like, how much money can I make off of that piece of, you know, that.
That little, you know, four foot by three foot.
That's the kind of stuff that bothers me. And I feel like, you know, we're at a point of no return on it.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: Quite frankly, but, you know. Yeah, it's good for the Razorbacks. They get their money out of Tyson. It'll help them.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: This is a big deal.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: It'll help them do the things that they want to do, apparently. What is it, like, 90 cents for every dollar supposed to go to athletes? And I don't know how that works. I tell you, the whole nil thing, it just. It seems like a giant slush fund that just never can get big enough.
And. But, like. Like, it seems so. Just.
I don't know that anybody's ever been able to accurately tell me, where do all the funds come from and where do they go and what sources do they flow through? It's very.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: It's. It's not.
Yeah, I. I'm not saying it's, like, incorrect, but I think it's difficult to for sure know that 90% of the money from this deal is going to nil because there's all the. And it's such a headache. But there's all the stuff with the College Sports Commission and how much of this is actually allowed and approved and legitimate and everything. Can they even enforce that? Is it illegal for them to say that?
We don't know. Nobody knows. We're making up the rules as we go along.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Quincy Rhodes, didn't he do some sort of thing this morning for Tyson? Did I hear somebody say something about this?
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Did he. They've been doing the, like, hot ones inspired thing where they eat razorback nuggets dipped in really spicy sauce, and Cam Ball did it last year.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: Is that a Tyson promotion or.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: They're eating the Razorback Tyson nuggets. So it's like, it's a Tyson.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: So, I mean, like, that they've done it before. That is, quote, unquote, legitimate nil. That, I think is, you know, not going to be frowned upon by the csc. But it's a weird world, man.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know if we're going to start seeing TV ads with athletes for Tyson. I don't know. I don't know how it's going to work exactly, but we'll see.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: Maybe they'll hand out mocks for us whenever we. Or smocks when we come into the Games, and we'll have, like, a Tyson logo on it.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: I was joking when I was talking on the phone with Hunter. He was saying that, you know, what they've had to figure out is how they're going to where they're going to get these logos. You know, most sports is pretty obvious, but the biggest ones that they can't figure out are swimming and gymnastics. Where do you put the logos and how do you put them on?
[00:18:26] Speaker B: That's a good point.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: And I was like, is gymnastics gonna have a rhinestone Tyson logo, like, on the hip or something? Cause that's, like, how it usually goes. I mean, they have one where there's a razorback, like, printed on the front, but typically, stuff's not printed on the uniform. It's, like, kind of colors and then sparkles. And so I'm like, are they gonna have, like, a little sparkly Tyson foods somewhere?
[00:18:44] Speaker B: I had not thought about that.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: So I don't know. I don't know how they'll do.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: I was also thinking about, like, some. Some different, like, surfaces, some different playing surfaces. How do you. How do you get this logo on, say, like, the indoor track?
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Yeah, they had it at the Tyson Invitational. They had it on, like, the.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Of course, now there's a lot of Tyson stuff already inside the indoor track.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: I don't think the Tyson Foods logo, they had that all over the padding, and they had it on, like, banners all around, kind of the fences. So I don't know if that'll become permanent there.
It was also gymnastics. That's something they have to figure out. There is where you can put logos at gymnastics. You can't, like, have a big one on the middle of the floor. I don't think. Like, I don't know if you can put one on the beam or on the vault table. I don't know. So they're still. They have to figure that out. What's allowed with that equipment.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: Very interesting, by the way. The indoor track is named Tyson, so it's not like, like they're lacking for name recognition there.
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[00:20:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean it's been interesting to kind of track his, his thoughts. We've talked a lot about how he does a really good job in those post games. I feel like you can really tell he's pretty authentic in those. It's, it's, it's not hard to see how he feels about things and so it's been interesting to kind of track his frustration with, with especially the offense and, and what he wants to see them do. So. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I think he thought they could have gotten a little bit more out of that and I, I'll be curious kind of the rest of their midweek slate how that looks.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: They're supposed to play Stetson this weekend. The first pitch Friday right now is scheduled for 6 o'. Clock. Although if you look at the forecast for Friday, it gets progressively worse as you get later into the day. It's gonna be a rainy weekend here. They're gonna be dodging thunderstorms the entire time.
Van Horn said yesterday in the press conference that he thought there's a chance and he said I don't get to make this decision. Although I think he has a pretty prominent voice in the decision making process that the game on Friday might get moved ahead earlier in the day. Maybe an early to mid afternoon game.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I haven't checked the forecast in a couple of days, so we'll see what's, what's different about it.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: But it looks rough for the whole weekend.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: I mean like I thought some other day it looked mostly like overnight.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: I think it's, it's pretty, pretty high chances of. Now you're going to make me check this while I'm talking the, the chance of rain all weekend. I think is pretty high each day. Now this is one thing I always like to tell people is just because There is a 40% chance of rain or a 60% chance of rain or whatever does not mean that it's going to rain all day. There, there could be pockets, you know, that field dries and it, you know, repels the water well enough that I think there's going to be a chance for them to play every day. It's just a matter of trying to find that window. Like, remember when they played Missouri last year?
Like there was a day where, I mean, it had been raining the entire day, but then there was like this little three hour window and they literally played the game in that three hour window and I don't know, five minutes after the game ends, here comes more rain. And you know, they just, they were able to literally just squeeze it in to.
And I think the run will helped. Yeah, but you know, that's, that's just kind of life as a baseball.
You know, player, coach, spectator, reporter, whatever this time of year.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Yeah, you've got stuff moved around every year. I feel like they do a good job of trying to get out in front of stuff and move things around.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: By the way, here's the forecast.
Friday night, 90% chance of thunderstorms. So I don't think they're going to be playing Friday night as long as that forecast holds. Saturday, 40% chance throughout the day, 20% chance at night. And then it's starting to look a little bit better later in the weekend than what it did earlier. Like Sunday, it's looking like it's going to be mostly clear. And then Monday, slight chance of showers. So that's what's up in baseball. They, they're 10 and three. Stetson. I talked to their coach this morning. I'll have some stuff from him at our website, whole hog sports.com over the next couple of days. But he said that they had a series last week against Fordham. You know, Stetson is in Central Florida, very close to Orlando. And he said that last week during that series against Fordham, he thought they may have pulled the tarp like 16 times. So they've got a little bit of experience dealing with the rain there in Florida.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, Florida, it's just one of those where you can pretty much expect that, especially at a certain time of year. It's just going to happen once a day. You're just going to get kind of dunked on and then you'll move on with your day.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So Stetson, they're a good program, by the way. I mean, like in 20, this is going back a little ways, but in 2018 they hosted a super regional. But then the last two years they've been a regional team too. They're predicted to win their conference again this season. So, you know, you kind of look at what these different teams have done, like Xavier, they came in here and we all thought, hey, maybe Xavier is going to be a pretty good team. And well, they went out to Cal State Fullerton over the weekend and they won two of three.
You know, you look at Arkansas State, they really haven't played anybody since they left Fayetteville, but they did sweep UAPB pretty emphatically. They won a game last night, I think by a fairly decent margin over Louisiana Tech in Ruston. That's always a pretty good program.
So, you know, if you're Arkansas, you play them and you want to beat them and then you want to send them off and say, hey, please do really well the rest of the year because it's going to help you from an RPI and you know, strength of schedule and, and all those metrics that are taken into consideration when the NCAA tournament rolls around. I think Stetson could be one of those teams again this weekend. I think UT Arlington's the one for me where I'm like, I don't know what I saw from them. They played close in a lot of games, but they look really young to me. Whereas Stetson, they got a lot of players back from their regional team last year.
You know, we talked about Arkansas State and all the experience that they had. Xavier, same thing. When they came here, they were without a couple of really good players.
Oklahoma State's done pretty well since Arkansas played them down in Arlington. So it's just, it's interesting to watch these teams and how they progress the rest of the year.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I feel like Arkansas usually does a good job with its non conference scheduling and finding some of those teams that they know they can beat but that are going to help them down the road.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Basketball tonight with Texas at Bud Walton Arena. It's going to be a 6 o' clock tip off. Game's going to be on ESPN too. A lot of things happen in Arkansas's favor last night in terms of different teams winning games that the Razorbacks really needed to happen. And so Arkansas's got a good chance to be a top four seed in the SEC tournament or I guess they would. I think they can clinch the top four seed if they beat Texas tonight.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: I think you're right. Yeah, yeah. SEC tournament time is. Is almost upon us. I know the conference tournament's not really anybody's favorite thing in the whole wide world, but it just gives us a taste of what's coming when we're excited about actual March Madness.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: I struggle with the SEC tournament because I hate the concept of giving your bid to the NC or tying it to your conference tournament. But on the other hand, it is a neat, you know, kind of festival, if you will, where everybody shows up and, you know, you're looking around the arena and you got people in 16 different kinds of, you know, T shirts. And, I don't know, it's. I've always kind of struggled with that, that kind of pull of one way or the other.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it is fun when you get an event like that where fans are coming together, but honestly, that's what's fun about the NCAA tournament, and that's what's fun about, like, the College World Series and things like that.
You get that even more so with the national tournament. So I'm. I'm not particularly attached to the. The SEC tournament, but I've been to them before, and they're pretty fun. I went when I was in Tampa back In, I think 22, maybe.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: Okay, so Arkansas, the SEC tournament in Tampa. Okay, Yeah, I remember that. I'd forgotten that it had gone. Yeah, it was fun because they won it in Nashville.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: Sankey. Greg Sankey's real big about having, like, a different town be identifiable with a different sport. Football in Atlanta and men's basketball in Nashville. Women's basketball tournament going on in Greenville, South Carolina. By the way, the Razorback women got beat by 30 today. Their season's over. Baseball and Hoover.
So here's the SEC standings. This is where I was wanting to get to.
Arkansas goes into the night 11 and 5. Their half game back of Alabama for second place in the SEC. Of course, Alabama would have the tiebreaker. Florida, they've clinched the outright championship at 15 and 2. They've won 10 in a row. Now they look like just a downhill freight train, to be honest with you. And. And then Tennessee's at 11 and 6, a half game behind Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Missouri, Texas A and M. Kentucky, all at 10 and 7. Texas could get 2, 10 and 7 if they win tonight in Fayetteville. So Arkansas, the top four seed, is not locked up. But it could be locked up if they win tonight.
If Arkansas were to win tonight, then going into the weekend, Arkansas, Alabama and Florida would have three of the top four locked or they would have the top three seeds locked up. And then that fourth seed would be like a free for all between 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 different teams.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, we'll. We'll see what happens. It's. I think it changed a little bit, obviously, once Arkansas lost to Florida, but it seems like in. On the national picture, Arkansas's held pretty steady in most projections as a five seed.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's probably, you know, where they're looking at, by the way. That's actually, I think, seven different teams that could be in the fight for that fourth seed. That'd be kind of a fun, fun weekend. You go back to what we were talking about earlier and just the, the, like from the, the sponsorship and tv, there's a lot of big brands in the sec. And then like these games, like, like television. I guess where I'm going with all this is television is what's driving all of this. It's. It's all about just how many eyes you can get on your team, television wise. And, you know, you got big games like this.
A point I was wanting to make earlier is that, you know, the SEC adding the ninth football game in the fall, that's a huge, like, that's a huge driver in terms of what these schools think that, hey, we can go out and we can renegotiate now because we've got this additional marquee game.
I think somebody told me that that ninth SEC game was going to be worth $5 million just in payout from the conference alone to every SEC team. And then, you know, that's not even taking into account what could happen in the next television contract.
What can happen with what you can do in terms of your. In stadium sales. It's pretty amazing.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, it definitely changes things. That's why they wanted to do it. I mean, everything is about getting the most money you possibly can. That's why they want to expand the NCAA Tournament. It's why they want to expand the College Football Playoff. It's why they added a conference game. It's just the more games you have, the more TV inventory you have, the more eyeballs you have, the more money you have.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: One of my daughters, she's not in sports, but I was thinking about this this morning after this Tyson thing came out, I don't know, four or five days ago. She's just coloring and, you know, she's. She's. But she's always thinking when she's coloring, she's calling. She goes, daddy, why is there a heart in the Oklahoma City Thunders logo on their Jersey. Well, it's because Loves is their sponsor.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: That's so fun.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: And I think I thought that that was very telling in that here you've got this little girl who, she didn't care about sports. She didn't watch any of the games really. But, you know, she'll pass through the, you know, she'll pass through the room as her brother's watching the Thunder play or whatever, and she notices that. You know what I'm saying?
[00:30:26] Speaker A: So funny.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: That's the power of these brand sponsorships.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Sickos Committee quote, tweeted my post about the Tyson thing today, and they said,
[00:30:35] Speaker B: you put that in your baby boat.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Yes, they said, can they change this logo to a Razorback nugget? Can they just get a patch that's just a picture of Razor nuggets?
[00:30:44] Speaker B: Well, maybe they can at some point
[00:30:46] Speaker A: be compelling imagery, especially for children.
[00:30:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, for sure. All right, Christina, thanks for being here. We're going to have a lot of coverage at our website, wholehogsports.com throughout the day. Basketball, obviously, tonight. Baseball coming up again this weekend with that game against Stetson. There's a lot of other sports that are in season, like NCAA track. Christina's written about NCAA track and all the qualifiers that Arkansas has for the indoor meet that's going to be here in Fayetteville next weekend. It's a busy time of year, and Tyson just made it a little bit busier today. We appreciate you being with us. Hope that we see you tomorrow on our website. Have a great day.
